Protection of a clinician, whether it be a physician or a non-physician, from the illness of a patient is an age old problem. The appearance of diseases such as Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has brought to the forefront of the medical community the need for effective protection of the clinician from the patient in all phases of the clinician's relationship with the patient. By doing so, the clinician is not only protected, but patients are also protected from risks of transfer of disease inadvertently through contact with clinicians who have been in contact with contaminated fluids from other patients.
An extremely common and important procedure that is performed by a clinician is the introduction or removal of fluid based material: be it, for instance, blood removed from the patient for testing, or, for instance, glucose introduced to the patient for nourishment. Each time such a procedure is performed, there exists the risk to the clinician that fluid based material from the patient will contact the clinician and transmit a harmful disease to the clinician or to others. Heretofore, there have been attempts to control or even solve this problem. The present invention serves to isolate the clinician from the fluid based material of the patient. The invention also protects patients from risks of transfer of disease from other patients inadvertently through contact with clinicians who have been in contact with contaminated fluids from other patients.